More and more people today are now looking for alternative ways of supplying power that they need in order to run appliances and equipment in their home. For some people because of where they live setting up a solar powered system is the ideal choice. In this article, we go through a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration if you are thinking about building a solar power system.
One of the first things that you should be doing in order to see if building a solar powered system is a viable option is to find out how much sunlight you get each day where you live. To do this you need to check out weather data for the area where you live or use a solar energy map, which you can easily find online.
The next thing that you need to do when considering building your own solar powered energy system is to calculate how much power it is you actually use. The easiest way of doing his by looking at the bills, you receive for your electricity company and then dividing the figures up so that they provide you an average of what you would use on a weekly basis. To work out what your weekly power consumption for your home is you take the total monthly figure off of your electricity bill and then divide this by 4.3.
Along with knowing how much sunlight, you are likely to get and how much power it is you will need to be able carry on running all appliances and equipment in your home there are other factors, which need to be taken into consideration. You need to make a decision on the kind of inverters you will be using, how many solar panels you will need and how many batteries you will need to store the energy in.
When it comes to selecting the inverters for your system, which is what converts the sunlight that has been collected by the solar panels in to AC power rather than DC power. All inverters will be rated according to their continuous and surge wattage. So the more power you are likely to use then the much higher these wattage ratings will need to be.
As for the batteries, you need ones that will be able to take continuous charges of electricity into them. Therefore, car batteries are not suitable simply because they are not designed to be able to collect and store large amounts of power at any time. The kind of batteries that you should be selecting to use when it comes to building your own solar powered system is say a marine or golf cart battery.
Of course, when it comes to someone actually choosing to build a solar powered system they must not forget about the solar panels. It is important that you carry out plenty of research on this item in order to ensure that you have the right ones for yours. As you will soon discover when looking for these panels there are a number of different sized panels to choose from. So take your time and look for those that will help to collect sufficient amounts of sunlight for your own particular requirements.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Solar assisted oil burner
By: paul | 18-07-2008
I have an oil burner which circulates hot water through cast iron radiators. I want to know how hard it would be to have a solar panel or two hooked up to a hot water tank connected to the oil burner so that preheated water could be introduced into the system reducing the amount of oil needed to bring the water up to temp.
Salt water
By: bob | 14-07-2008
Can I use salt pool water in my Vortex solar pool heaters?
Solar installation
By: cindy stone | 13-07-2008
in california: what is the quickest way to learn solar installation
Grants for solar power for community parks and recreation, sports fields, etc...?
By: fidelvillegas | 04-07-2008
I am the Presdient of a small non-profit. We are building an athletic complex in an underproviliged area in Texas. We are interested in having solar power for the lighting for facilitties such as walking trail, small soccer field, bathrooms, concession stands, etc...Do you know of grants available to us?
Pv panel charges car battery?
By: Mark | 19-06-2008
Hi, I heard that a 10 watt PV panel can keep a 12 volt car battery battery charged without a regulator, is this true? Cheers Mark from oz
How does the performance of evacuated tube ...
By: NT | 15-06-2008
How does the performance of evacuated tube collectors that allow the water inside them compare to the performance of evacuted tubes that have a copper tube (heat pipe) for domestic water heating?
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